Suite Life: Return To 613
by Thor2000
Summary: Maddie starts getting depressed over how her life is going and is easily manipulated by the ghost of Suite 613. Zack and Cody could be the only ones who know where to find her.
1. Chapter 1

Madeline Fitzpatrick stood at her post at the candy counter of the Hotel Tipton in the historic city of Boston, Massachusetts. It seemed as if she was watching life pass her by as figures of industry and wealthy patrons of the arts marched on by without even taking a look upon her. She sighed a bit, leaned a bit forward and propped her head up in her hand with her elbow to the counter. Barely anyone bought candy from her. Maybe it was the high prices, the limited selection of the merchandise or perhaps it was the fact that much of it had already expired. Her only repeating customers was Arwin Hawkhauser, the Tipton's main maintenance man and Zack and Cody, the twin sons of the hotel's local star, Carey Martin. Arwin considered himself a great inventor, but with all those scientific equations going at once in his head, he often forgot the simplest of facts, like looking in front of him. Arwin was almost a lovable uncle to her as much as a surrogate father to Zack and Cody. The two boys loved Arwin and felt he thought a lot like them. In some way, Arwin was an adult with the mind of a young boy.

Zack and Cody often ran loose through the hotel as if it was their private fun land. Weaving around guests, racing around tourists, exploring the ventilation ducts and interacting on a first name basis with the full hotel staff was a license to play around the boys. Their activities continued to forever irk Marion Moseby, the hotel manager. Of the two, Cody was the more rational and grounded to earth while Zack was most likely to tempt your patience. Always disproving of rules and a good education, Zack was fated in Cody's mind to spend his life in prison. Carie had a lot of patience around her boys and loved them as strong as a mother could love her sons. Blonde and beautiful, Carey could also sing like an angel, and it was that same melodic existence she lived that made her enamored through the hotel staff, more so by Arwin who concealed a loving and covert infatuation for her in hoping he could be a husband to her and a father to the boys.

Maddie's occupational family was extended to include Esteban Ramirez, one of the most hard-working Tipton bellboys. Born in a small republic somewhere south of Mexico and north of Panama, Esteban was the archetype of the hard-working man. He was willing to do any job or chore for an honest buck, and it was that honest work ethic that made him the often foil of London Tipton, the daughter of the hotel owner. London was a living contradiction. Brunette and attractive, she was the daughter of an American businessman and a female Chinese diplomat, but she must have been a blonde airhead in a previous life because she was so completely unaware of the real world beyond the rooms of the Tipton where she lived. Raised by nannies and tutors for half of her life, London coasted the rest of her life on her extreme fortune and looks unaware of people like Maddie who had to work just to survive. To London, everyone lived as luxurious as she did, and when the real world reared itself to her, she had someone else deal with it. Yet, in that vacuous pretty package, there pumped a heart - a heart that loved to give even when it didn't understand the problem. Maddie knew that heart was in there, but like Esteban, she was often reduced to being that nameless fixture carrying an umbrella to protect London from the rain or the forgotten escort who followed London through swanky dress stores and expensive restaurants. It was a bitter and self-deprecating pill Maddie often had to swallow, but it sometimes gave her a chance to pretend to be London and live in her life instead of being just lonely and forgotten Maddie, the cute blonde girl standing at the candy counter hoping for someone to come talk to her.

"In-coming!" A voice cried out. Frank the doorman spread two doors wide and hastened aside of the figure in protective armor rolling into the lobby on a skateboard. Under the helmet, Zack grinned his boyhood gleam and turned a sharp corner as his twin brother similarly shot through the doors and rolled over the golden mahogany floor to meet him. One female guest clutched her chest to catch her breath and a foreign diplomat blessed himself with relief he was not sprawled to the floor behind them.

"No fair!" Cody pulled his helmet off. "You didn't make the lamp post."

"But I did sideswipe the trolley in order to avoid the bus." Zack picked apart his brother's complaint. "You gotta give me that."

"Boys, boys…" Moseby hastened through to them while apologizing to his guests. "How many times do I have to tell you? No skateboarding through the lobby!" The vein in his forehead was throbbing with embarrassed hostility.

"Technically," Zack spoke up. "You said no skateboarding in the lobby; we were skateboarding INTO the lobby!"

"Major difference, Mr. Moseby." Cody shared his brother's choice of semantics as the beamed together like identical bookends. Behind them, Maddie finally chuckled at their efforts to bother and perturb her employer.

"Oh," Moseby knew how to out think them. "Well, what if I explain the difference in employing and non-employing your mother here?" That stirred a faint fear in the boys. Their mother loved working here; it was a chance to establish roots and a following in Boston instead of moving from job to job. They were never quite clear if it was a bluff or an empty promise from Moseby, but they did know that if they ruined their mother's job here that it would mean this freedom.

A brief glance of defeated elation later, Cody and Zack turned in unison to the opening elevators on the landing. Spewing from the interior of the lift, expert photographer Frank Manning carried gear ahead of sound expert Steve Barnette and psychic Dawn Rochner. In back, writer Henry Desmond talked with Ed Brannion and William Collins, the last two members of this team from Maine's Collinsport Ghost Society. For the last week, the six-part team had been keeping Suite 613 under observation in hopes of capturing on tape evidence of an alleged ghost: a beautiful brunette woman in a cocktail dress known to the hotel staff as Irene. Supposedly, in life, she had been Irene DeMontoya whose family owned the hotel for a short interim in the Twenties and Thirties before london's father, Wilfred Tipton, got it back. Collins had a good friendship with the Martin boys. Zack loved his ghost stories and Cody was always quick to get into a philosophical debate on the existence of life after death. Right now, Collins just mussed their hair with relished teasing as they headed past him.

"Mr. Collins…" Moseby looked with subdued anticipation to the amateur ghost hunter. He had kept the ghost of Irene a secret from the public for years, but now that it was added to the lists of other Boston ghosts, it was doing wonders for the hotel's business. "Do you know that every time you come for an investigation that our phone goes off the hook for people wanting to check into Room 613? Our reservations go up almost three hundred percent!"

"So you finally got permission to rent out the room?" William stopped at the checkout desk to pay for the rooms of his crew.

"Actually, no…" Moseby reacted with saddened regret. "I've never had a chance to contact Irene's heirs about obtaining the deed to the room. I think they live somewhere in France, but that's not absolute. Did you see Irene this time?"

"Some ambiguous readings, balls of light on video and maybe an odd shadow or two on tape." Collins mumbled under breath as he signed his bill. "Just need to examine the tapes."

"Godspeed." Moseby sighed off as Collins turned away from checkout stuffing his receipt to his pocket. Lifting his head, he pretended to notice Maddie for the first time and grinned to her like a proud father. His feet strolled to her direction as she broke from her depression to her cheery mask.

"Hi, Mr. Collins." Maddie grinned ear to ear. "The usual?"

"Two chocolate bars for my girls…" Collins pulled a five-dollar bill from his wallet. "You know, Maddie, Ally and I would love it if you could baby-sit for us again sometime soon."

"Baby-sit?" Maddie so wanted the money, but she also recalled the Collins girls with hesitant dread. Tiny Lainey could be such a darling, but controlled by her older sister Georgia, the two of them were merciless. Memories of being bound and gagged inside a closet, or of waking to find her body drawn upon with permanent markers still haunted her.

"I'd rather jump off the roof into a pool full of leeches." Maddie found another choice. Collins continued staring at her with irked frustration.

"Those little monsters have a bit of a reputation, don't they?"

"Oh, yeah…." Maddie confirmed. As he departed, Collins told her to keep the change, but he also passed Esteban a five-dollar bill for helping his crew load up the van. Left alone again, Maddie took a deep breath and shifted her weight to her other leg. Suddenly deciding to re-do her inventory, she started to reach to her merchandise list.

"Maddie," Moseby was returning across the lobby. "London called down. Has Ivana's Doggie Yum-Yum's arrived yet?"

"Doggie Yum-Yum's?" Maddie shrieked in distaste. "I thought they read Douggie Yum-Yum's! I've been charging myself seventy-five cents for each one I ate!"

"Yes, well…." Moseby shared in their common frustration with London's elitist life style with over-pampering that dog. "It's the only treat the dog likes. Just…." He franticly shook his arms trying to cover for her. "Take to her what's left."

"That dog lives better than I do!" Maddie clutched the opened box upset and pressed it to her chest with hostility. Marching with angry steps and boarding the empty elevator, she hit the button for the twenty-fifth floor penthouse. The doors closed on her and she felt the lift pull her against gravity up through the hotel. Above her, a light moved through numbered lights past the floors of the hotel. As she counted along to those floors, Maddie lost a bit of her anger as usual and fell silent to what seemed a lonely fate. It wasn't that long ago that Zack and Cody had described to her a dream they had where she was the stuck-up hotel heiress and London was the under-appreciated candy counter girl. Oh, if that could be made a reality. Instead of shopping, she could donate money to charity and use her prestige to make the world a better place – all the things London wasn't known for.

The elevators doors opened and Maddie nearly stepped forward. This was the sixth floor, not the penthouse. Pressing the button again, the doors closed and Maddie was on her way once again. The floors counted again - seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, and then hesitated at twelve before the doors opened again. Maddie's eyes looked up to the empty hall and the placard for the sixth floor.

"Who keeps hitting the button?" Maddie wondered out loud and again hit the button for the penthouse. Once again, the elevator closed and started again. Her brown eyes watched as the ascending elevator moved up once more for the penthouse. Upon trying to pass the thirteenth floor, the elevator suddenly stalled and came to a stop.

"Why does this happen to me?" She whined and reached for the elevator phone to call Arwin, but as she clutched the phone she heard something else. It wasn't from the elevator. It was from the elevator shaft around her. Filled with fears of the elevator crashing or stalling, her head turned up to the noise of a wind wafting down through the building above around the cables and the pulleys of the lift. There was a sound of a breath beside her, an incoherent whisper and then the noise of someone beside her unseen.

Maddie's heart now cringed with fear and pain and the dog treats in her hand hit the floor by her foot as she grabbed her chest. Gasping for breath, her eyes rounded with fear and she stumbled backward; her back hitting the rear of the elevator and sliding down to the floor. She struggled for a breath, a scream she couldn't make and her voice trapped in her body. A tear dropped over her face as she stared up to the flickering lights over her.

The elevator started moving again. Returning again to the sixth floor, the doors opened to the empty hall. From the floor, the body and image of Madeline Margaret-Genevieve Miranda-Catherine Fitzpatrick lifted herself up. Trancelike and unyielding, her eyes were determined and her poise defiant. She marched forward with the personality of another person in her body. The sleeve of her blue hotel uniform was lightly ripped at the collar, and one of her socks dropped to her ankle. Rounding the corner with a determined glare, she moved toward Suite 613. It's door opened on its own to her coming presence and she continued into the suite beyond it as the mistress to its interior. Once inside, she gazed back outward as if she were mildly reconsidering what she was doing and gestured to the door out of her touch. Obeying her will, it closed shut and locked itself to her mental demands.


	2. Chapter 2

PART TWO

"Yes, sir," Moseby communicated long distance with the manager of singer Hannah Montana. "I have your reservations set for one of our best suites."

"And security as well?" Bobby Joe Cyrus spoke for the young tween queen. "Hannah loves her fans, but lets face the facts. She wants her privacy."

"She'll have so much privacy she'll think she's the only one here."

"Well," Cyrus recalled an incident in Nashville where a fan nearly pulled Hannah's wig off. "Let's not go overboard here. She's not exactly a diva."

"I have Hannah booked for the twenty-fifth." Moseby looked up from the desk and noticed London Tipton coming toward him dressed extravagantly conspicuous and carrying her tiny Pomeranian like an accessory over her arm. "We'll see you then."

"Moseby," London looked up earnestly. "Hannah Montana is still going to be staying here. I can't wait to meet her."

"What makes you think you're meeting her?" Moseby hung up the phone then pulled out and dropped the conventional anti-celebrity waivers that London's father had created to prevent his crazy daughter from intervening with actors and singers. Each proviso covered each threat that London was known to make when it came to meeting actors and actresses that stayed at the Tipton.

"You have just GOT to be kidding." London balked at the sight of those waivers again. "Those things only keep me from Orlando Bloom and Jesse McCartney; Hannah loves me. We're both celebrities twice removed." She beamed with the lobby lights sparking in her overzealous brown eyes.

"You two have never met."

"You don't know that!" London was adamant.

"London…" Moseby sighed a bit and carried messages over to the concierge. "You father says that if you pull another stunt, that he's sending you off to…"

"Parochial school?" London knew that threat. "Too late! He already did! Speaking of which, what happened to Maddie? She never came up with Ivana's treats. My little precious got so hungry I had to share her some of my caviar tar-tar." Ivana cooed with her master's voice.

"What?" Moseby turned around interested. "But I saw her head up the elevator myself carrying the dog…"

Ivana started growling at that reference.

"Special treats." He rolled his eyes to the over-pampered pooch. "When she didn't come down, I just figured you had taken her off again. After all, this is not the first time you've taken Maddie to carry your shopping bags for you, and I've always been lenient with Maddie where you were concerned."

"Moseby, I haven't been shopping since…. Wait, what time is it?" London lost track of the time again. "Anyway, I ordered those treats all the way from Germany. Where are they?"

"These things are really good." Zack and Cody came wandering by as they ate treats from a recognizable red and yellow box with gold print. Moseby and London turned to face them, acknowledged what they were eating and stood in silent witness to the improbable and unlikely sequence of events should they reveal the truth to the twins.

"How did you guys get Ivana's treats?" London snatched the nearly empty package back.

"Ivana's?" Zack stopped chewing.

"They're dog…" Moseby heard Ivana growling again. "Special treats."

Zack and Cody dived on the closest potted plant and began choking and coughing up the crumbs and remnants from their throats. Zack started wiping his tongue on his sleeve and Cody snatched a bottle of water from the guest buffet in the lobby and used it to gargle the taste from his mouth.

"Where did you guys find the treats?" Moseby used his managerial voice now. "Have you see Maddie upstairs anywhere?"

"Maddie, no…" Cody replied as Zack snatched his bottle and gargled with it. "The box was laying in the elevator when we came down and we…"

"Dude, we've been eating dog snacks!" Zack sipped and gargled more water.

"Haven't seen Maddie since we were down earlier." Cody continued.

"That's almost five hours." Moseby slipped partial from his role as an angry employer. "This is so not like Madeline. She's always so responsible and diligent to her job. Even if she came down, I know I would have seen her. " He snapped his fingers toward the bell boys. "Esteban?"

"Yes, Mr. Moseby…" The honest and hard-working Mexican-American turned round eager to help from the front landing after loading luggage for an arriving guest.

"We are going to check the empty rooms for Madeline." Moseby quickly slipped behind the admissions desk to print a list of the unoccupied rooms in the hotel. "Zack, Cody, check around and see if anyone has seen her recently."

"Did something happen to Mrs. Maddie?" Esteban asked as Zack and Cody took off the check the kitchen.

"She's been away from her post for five hours." Moseby filled him in. "She had better hope she's hurt or injured because if I suddenly discover she's taken up gold-bricking, she's fired."

"What about me?" London wanted to help as she pulled Ivana closer to her. "Oh, I know! I'll offer Maddie a twenty-five thousand dollar award to give herself up. If that doesn't work, I'll up it to fifty." She grinned ear-to-ear thinking she was finally being brilliant.

"Yes," Moseby looked over to Esteban sadly. "Why don't you do that?" He and Esteban meanwhile rolled their eyes embarrassed for the slow heiress.

Five flights above, Suite 613 remained dark and unattended by anything in the corporeal sense. The Victorian furniture that adorned it had been specially ordered from England by the woman who had thought the suite would be home to her and her husband, but now, it rested unseen and covered by white sheets. The dusty carpeting showed vague signs of being disturbed a few times in the past, but no definite footprints appeared in the scant sunlight streaming in from the balcony overlooking the street out front of the hotel. The stone gargoyle out front cast a stretched and arching shadow through the glass doors and over the covered furniture. As the sun passed over the city, its beams entering the room passed even more closer to the portrait of Irene DeMontoya. The visage of the lovelorn and long-gone beauty stared from the portrait seemingly lifelike as if ready to reach out and touch the living. Her story was a tragic drama of a heart-broken young bride and the loving husband who never returned from war. Combined with the shadows and cobwebs of the room, it was no wonder that Room 613 was believed to be haunted.

One person did not seem to be affected by the alleged ghost. Standing before the mirror, Madeline Genevieve Fitzpatrick stood with access to Irene's elegant wardrobe left behind in the closets. Her hands reached up fitting a silver and diamond tiara to her blonde tresses and then smoothing and parting her long blonde dresses. Her movements and gestures belonged to a person borne from a regal and strict social life instead of from that a young girl who came from low-middle-class persons. Instead of her hotel uniform, she was now clothed in a long white and gold ball gown with baroque and exquisite tailoring for a woman born to high society. Her fingers and palms caressed out the wrinkles to her dress and her eyes carefully narrowed upon her reflection. Extending her arm to the vanity in the dark corner of the room, she caught the gold brush, which had flung itself into the air. Nothing had tossed it; it had just thrown itself to the air in accordance to her mental command. Brushing her long hair, Maddie lightly grinned to herself for a minute then turned her head out to the outer room annoyed by the people out in the hall outside the suite.

"Everyone's favorite hide-out." Moseby stood ready to unlock the suite with his key. "Madeline, you had better not be in here."

"Mr. Moseby," Esteban cringed from the sight of the numbers on the door as it opened up with a slow creak. "I think we can skip this one."

"Esteban," Moseby turned to him. "Do I have to remind you that one Halloween that you and the others were in here having a séance in order to scare Zack. You can't possibly still be scared of this room."

"Scared?" Esteban stood in the doorway and perused the room from the hall. "I don't see Mrs. Maddie; let's go check Suite 714." He started to leave but something was holding him back. It was Moseby holding him by the cuff of his trousers. Moseby had a look of determined authority that he do what he said.

"If this was a movie…" Esteban stepped lightly into the room once his belt was released. "I'd be saying don't go in here."

"If you want to work for me, you will go in."

"Okay," Esteban bemoaned silently. "But if I get killed, I'm never speaking to you again." With another roll of the eyes from his boss, Esteban took a series of small steps past the bare liquor cabinet by the door and toward the covered table and chairs in the middle of the room. Moseby strode a bit more unwavering straight through the middle of the room breaking a path of disturbed dust and broken cobwebs. Before the bedroom doors, he stopped, hesitated and looked to Esteban looking out through the front balcony doors.

"By the way, how did Arwin sneak past Zack during the séance?" Moseby lifted his foot up on a chair to tighten his shoelace.

"He didn't." Esteban was reluctantly peeking under a piano. "He pulled himself through the air duct into the bedroom."

"Why would he do that?"

"Mrs. London paid him $500."

"Ask a stupid question…" Moseby now turned into the direction of the bedroom then stopped. He was suddenly getting the most tactile feeling of dread. For some reason, he felt like a young boy again, and he was being overwhelmed by the most over-coming stress attack. He didn't want to go any further, but he knew he had to. It was as if it had suddenly dawned on him he was somewhere he shouldn't be. Something did not want him here. He couldn't see it, but the sensation was waking every childhood fear he had ever suppressed of unseen monsters hiding from him. Unable to go no further, he looked to his trusting bellboy.

"Esteban, check the closets and under the bed." He ordered. Esteban took one step into the bedroom suite and stepped back.

"I don't think so." He was overwhelmed as well by the presence of energy in the room. It was darker than the rest of suite even with the limited beams of sunlight reaching into the room. The darkened canopy bed resembled an old-fashioned funeral wagon while the covered furniture around it resembled attending ghosts. One closet door on the far wall was partially askew while the other was bound up tight.

"I am your boss, and I say go look in that closet for Maddie." Moseby ordered.

"If I was Maddie, I wouldn't be in a haunted closet." Esteban thought that out a bit further. "In fact, I wouldn't be anywhere near a haunted closet." He heard a light voice giggling over his head.

"Madeline." Moseby heard her too and lifted his head as well as her voice seemed to waft from beyond time and space. It sounded as if she was over their heads, but the ceiling was dark and covered in spider webs. As clouds obscured the sunlight entering the room, the suite became even darker and with the distant teasing laughter came other indistinct voices. He heard the tinkling of fine glasses being clinked together and the even fainter remnants of old Big Band music. Turning toward Esteban frozen still, Moseby noticed the chair he had tied his shoe on had moved from where it was. It was now dragged to the middle of the room and facing them as if someone was watching them.

"Wasn't that chair over there a second ago?" Esteban asked his employer, but they now erupted into two loud shrill screams followed by the sound of their feet racing out of the room. Esteban had briefly collided with the table and bounced out of the room as Moseby fumbled trying to close the door. Fumbling to lock it once more, he gave up and entered the elevator before Esteban.

Back in Suite 613, Madeline Fitzpatrick stood in the bedroom doors in her regal French dress. Resembling a divine blonde goddess of the underworld, her head was slightly low and her facial features angry and possessed. She lightly stepped back from the doorway and gestured toward them to close at her demand. Behind the slamming doors, her violated guise snarled with a glimmer of light glowing from within her bright blue eyes.


	3. Chapter 3

PART THREE

Moseby's hands still shook as he tried to hold Carey's coffee cup. Bracing his wrist, Carey poured her employer another cup to calm his frazzled nerves. Sitting down across from him still clad in her evening dress, she had finished her act downstairs about twenty minutes prior and now found herself trying to dissuade the fears of her own boss. Something had rattled him. He had been sitting in the fetal position outside the door of her suite when she came up.

"This is ridiculous!" Carey found she had to be the voice of reason after his tale. "Everyone knows there's no such thing as ghosts."

"I used to think the same thing…" Moseby agreed with her. "But I checked out Mr. Collins's website, and I learned that there are currently over seven hundred ghost hunting agencies in the United States. Millions of dollars a year goes into paranormal research, and even with the majority of most cases coming down to being explainable, there are still countless cases that can't be explained. Now, there is no certifiable proof that ghosts exist, but the evidence is staggering to suggest that the human spirit somehow still exists after death."

"What's this all got to do with Maddie?" Carey rose to her kitchenette to place her empty glass coffeepot into her sink.

"I don't know." Moseby looked around the Martin's toy strewn suite. "I am full aware that Suite 613 has been haunted for quite sometime. Mr. Collins' experts have scrutinized it three times and insist they can't explain the stories, but I also know that Maddie leaving the hotel without telling me is so unlike her. Somehow, someway, I know she is somewhere in the hotel."

"Have you talked to her parents?" Carey removed her earrings.

"Her parents…" Moseby scoffed at the sound of the word. It cast illusions of a group of people related to each other who cared about each other. "Her mother seemed a little concerned, but her father made some crack about it being time she moved out, and her brother, her brother was even worse. The little monster was quickly tossing Maddie's things out of her room so he could have it." Moseby calmed as he sipped his coffee once more. "I'm starting to understand why Madeline never wants to go home. It's so depressing there and I'm sure she feels under appreciated."

"How far did you and Esteban get in checking the… hey!" Carey noticed two heads eavesdropping from the doorway of her sons' bedroom. "Aren't you guys supposed to be asleep?" Moseby also turned to look at the boys.

"We were concerned about Maddie." Cody confessed as he walked out in the t-shirt and pajama pants he slept in.

"Yeah," Zack answered crestfallen and worried. "We care about her. Didn't the police find anything?" He recalled seeing the patrol car out front of the Tipton.

"Not much, boys." Moseby forced down the last of Carey's coffee. "They took her description, walked the hotel and talked to as many people as they could, but they didn't find Maddie." He exhaled a minute. "They think she might have left work a bit depressed to meet someone."

"But we're the only people she knows." Cody reported.

"Except for those crazy nuns at her school." Zack made the noise of getting swatted by a yardstick. "And we know she doesn't like it there either."

"They did say that people who vanish usually return within twenty-four hours." Moseby continued trying to reassure himself. "But they can't do much more unless there's some sort of sign of foul play."

"Okay, boys," Carey corralled her twins back to their bedroom. "Go back to bed; you've got school in the…."

"Today's Friday…" Zack was quick to point out. "Tomorrow's Saturday."

"Then you got to get up early for Saturday morning cartoons." Carey continued pressing them further. A kiss for her problem child known as Zack and a kiss for her gifted child known as Cody and she was switching out the lights on them and closing the door. In the darkened room, Cody's shadow was outlined by moonlight behind the curtain. Zack's bed obscured by the shadowy other side of the room sighed with the sound of his voice.

"You think she got lost in the vents?" Zack asked his brother.

"I don't think she's the type to go vent exploring." Cody answered logically. "We know almost every foot of the hotel. I bet we could find her."

"Or what's left of her." Zack replied distastefully. "I saw this movie once where this guy…"

"Oh brother!" Cody sat up straight. "You're supposed to be the one who wants to marry her and you got the worst possible scenario."

"I'm just saying…" Zack continued. "I was watching Court TV and this guy once…"

"Go to sleep." Cody snapped as the sounds of Zack grumbling from his bed reached his ears. Eventually, his twin brother drew silent and Cody could close his eyes and replay the day's events. They weren't in the lobby when Maddie came up the elevator, but they had passed Mr. Collins and his crew from the Collinsport Ghost Society in Maine. Collins was also married to that skinny lady lawyer who worked here in Boston and they had those two little girls. Little girls? They were terrorists in disguise! Little Lainey had a crush on him, but little Georgia was a force ten hurricane on two tiny little legs. On her first trip to the Tipton, she had vanished into the duct works to escape Maddie laughing and giggling and it was he and Zack who had to go after her.

Maddie's likeness and memory remained in Cody's mind as he drifted to sleep. As she remained at the top of Cody's concerns, she also drifted into his dreams. In the darkness and environs of his dreaming mind, he found an aspect of her back at work at the candy counter. She beamed to him once more and waved him to follow her to the elevators. Maybe she was showing him where to find her, but instead of the elevators, Cody found himself floating up a high stairway reaching up into the hotel. It was like a secret passage he didn't know existed. At the top, she was far from him in a room of billowing smoke and darkness. The perspective and environs altered with the rules of existence in this reality. Sometimes, he felt he was flying and at times he thought Maddie towered over him as if she were fifty feet tall.

"Cody." Her voice whispered to him and he ran into a deserted version of the lobby. It was trashed, furniture askew and devastated. Turning round, Cody somehow found himself in the dining room. The tables and chairs here were overturned and tossed around.

"Cody." Maddie whispered again and he ran into the kitchen, but in this restructured dream-state, Cody realized in was in his suite. Neither his brother or mom answered his calls, but his attention was diverted to a figure falling outside the window from London's penthouse. He turned to see what he had seen, but was instead pulled back from the window. Maddie was spinning him around to see her. Her hair was longer than he had thought, and he didn't recognize her dress. It was black and shapeless as if it was molded out of shadow. She guided him around as if they were dancing.

"I always liked you best, Cody." She said to him. "You're so much smarter than Zack. You know where to find me." She tilted up his head toward hers and leaned to press her lips to his.

Carey Martin tore from her sleep as one of her sons screamed in his sleep. Pulling her sleeping visor down to her neck, she stumbled over her foldout bed, set one foot to the floor and rushed to her boys' room. The digital clock on Cody's nightstand read 1:33 AM before the lights went on.

"What is it? What is it?" She tried to untangle her pajama top from her left arm out of her sleeve.

"Mom," Zack screamed. "I saw Maddie! I woke up and saw her sitting on top Cody's bed."

"You saw her what?" Cody reacted slowly still asleep. "I had a dream she was kissing me."

"What are you doing kissing Maddie?" Zack reacted.

"Maybe she's ticked off because you think she's chopped up in the basement."

"Hold on here…" Carey was getting tired of turning her head left and right between her sons. "It sounds like you both were dreaming."

"But mom…" Zack was sure it was not a dream. "I woke up and saw her."

"Honey," His mom sat down motherly by his side. "You two are both concerned about your friend, but I'm sure she'll show up. It's not your responsibility to worry about her. Maddie's a big girl and she'll show up again safe."

"Are you sure?"

"Positive." Carey kissed him. "Now try to have dreams that won't scare you." She kissed Cody again on the way out. The light stayed on this time as Cody looked to his brother.

"You saw Maddie on my bed?" He asked.

"Weird, huh?" Zack answered.

"Not really…" Cody lifted aloft an object he had found in his bed.

"What's that?"

"An earring." Cody revealed. "She was wearing it in my dream."

Up in the top story penthouse, London Tipton woke from a cold sleep and opened her eyes. Sitting up in bed, she noticed Ivana at alert in her little bed on the floor. The dog's tiny ears were perched high on its head for every little noise; its eyes widened and staring forward to the dark penthouse hallway. She whimpered a bit at something she could only see then dived on to London's bed and buried herself in the many fine-scented satin sheets.

"Hey," She called to her. "Get out there and defend me!" Ivana just whimpered fearfully.

"Fine!" London jumped out of her bed barefoot in her silk lavender pajamas. "But you get no Crème Brule with your cheese omelet in the morning!" London's hand grabbed the silver baton hanging off her wall next and carefully stepped lightly to peek out into the hall. The soft blue light in the outside penthouse came through the windows looking over the city. With her dainty steps lightly hopping across her white carpet, she stood at the twin doors of her bedroom. The high ceiling cast long shadows, and the décor took on the shapes of unidentified beings. Her eyes peeked hesitantly down the hall to her north closet and then the other way to her French bathroom.

"I don't know who's there..." London called out to the night-filled hall and realized how spooky it really was here at night. "But I have a… baton, and I know how to use it!" Behind her, Ivana was whimpering in fear.

"Don't worry, honey." She turned to her dog. "There's nothing there, and I didn't mean it about the Crème Brule either." She tossed up her dark hair over her shoulder and turned to check out her reflection in the mirror. Instead of her own perfect self, Maddie's reflection in a long white gown stared back at her from the dark mirror. London's voice now screamed through the penthouse.


	4. Chapter 4

PART FOUR

Maddie had been missing for two days now and Moseby had had Esteban fill in the vacant post intermittently in the time, but the job was conflicting with his bellboy duties. He couldn't trust Zack and Cody with the responsibility so he turned to Maddie's friends who had come around playing detective to find her. From among them, only one of them seemed earnestly interested in filling in the position.

"Now, Corrie…" Moseby checked out Maddie's friend, Corrine Willows, on her new job at the candy counter. "I want to thank you for volunteering to fill in for Maddie here. You do know how Maddie runs the counter."

"Oh, sure…" Corrie resonated with the same vacuous look of a dumb blonde. "I know how to use a register thing." Her head turned toward London entering the lobby carrying shopping bags. "Oh, look! It's London Tipton!" She became overwhelmed by a wave of idol worship.

"You hired the weird girl?" London took Moseby aside.

"She's the only one I could get who was willing to work for wages lower than Maddie's." Moseby confessed.

"Lower?" Corrie had a revelation. "I thought I was getting the same."

"And I'm sure you're really worth it!" London answered trying to be sincere then turned back to Moseby. "Still no sign of Maddie? Has anyone found any trace of her?"

"Nothing so far…" Moseby gestured without a word for one of the extra bellboys to take London's shopping bags up to the penthouse for her. "London, you may think of Maddie as just an employee here, but I'm really positively concerned about her. In the last few days, I've learned more about her than any of the other employees, and quite frankly, I'm worried. She's a lot more than you think."

"Moseby," London followed him part of the way across the lobby, and placed her dainty hand to her heart. "Maddie is my friend. Of course, I care about her. Why is it that we never realize how special our friends are until they are gone?"

"I guess it's because it takes until we lose them to realize it." Moseby answered and turned back without another word to his office. London turned back to the elevators as well and glanced to Corrie along the way.

"I can't believe I'm working in the same hotel with London Tipton." Corrie grinned to her. "No wonder Maddie loves this job."

"You really need a Prozac!" London hopped into the elevator and hit the button for the penthouse. The doors slid closed on her and shut herself off to the lobby before lifting her up. Looking up to the numbers lighting up, she took a deep breath with the elevating platform at her feet and tossed her hair back as the sixth floor came up. Once reaching it, the elevator stopped and the doors opened.

Looking out to the empty hall, she scowled quite perplexed and hit the button for the top floor again. There was not a person in sight as the doors closed and she started moving once more. Coming up on the thirteenth floor, the elevator stopped again, and the doors opened again. The placard on the opposite wall read she was still on the sixth floor!

"Who's screwing around with the elevator?" She looked to the numbers inside the elevator. It was the sixth floor!

Making a face, London extended two fingers on her right hand and pressed her weight into the button for the top floor. Once more, the elevator started up with her up to the tenth floor, the twelfth floor and past the thirteenth floor. Breathing deeply, she leaned up off the button as she started reaching the twentieth floor. At the twenty-third floor, the elevator stopped and she moaned out loud with the doors opening again.

"Hey London…" Zack and Cody were entering the elevator. Arwin was with them and greeted her as well while carrying another large shoebox-sized invention with a long silver tube out of it.

"What are you guys doing?" She wondered out loud.

"Cody had a dream abut Maddie still being somewhere in the hotel." Zack spoke up.

"Yeah," Cody continued. "I'm not sure, but going by my dream, I think we were in Suite 613…"

"The haunted suite?"

"Yeah, I think that's where we're going to find her." Cody reacted optimistically.

"Oh," London realized that she had seen Arwin's invention before. "Isn't that your ghost-finding device from the fake séance we had?"

"What? Uh, um, no, I had to strip that for parts." Arwin grinned proud of his new invention. "You see, when Mr. Collins was here examining Suite 613, I noticed his team had all these different electronic sensors and recorders, so I built my own master sensor capable of recording everything from electro-magnetic to invisible light."

"Does it work?"

"Why does everyone ask that?" Arwin looked morally defeated as the elevator stopped once more at the sixth floor. London screamed at the placard for the sixth floor. Zack and Cody covered their ears while Arwin resonated from the pitch of her voice.

"Again!" She griped. "I'm starting to think this elevator is haunted! This is my third stop here today!"

"That could be significant." Cody had a revelation. "In my dream about Maddie, we were in Suite 613. I'm positive that's where she is!"

"Well," Zack backed off from another adventure. "You just go check it out. I'll wait here with London."

"Uh-uh…" London was uncharacteristically brave as they turned the corner for Suite 613. "Moseby implied I didn't care about Maddie; I'm going to prove him wrong!" She watched as Arwin commenced with using his passkey to unlock the suite. "On second thought, I can see the whole suite from out here in the hall!"

Arwin and Cody made a non-verbal look of annoyance for their intrepid team and pushed ahead with Zack and London before them. Zack made guttural noises of still being intimidated by the room as Cody pushed him in and London whimpered like her dog in the presence of the spooky dark suite.

"It's even creepier than before!" Cody cringed at every shadow and face-like pattern in the baroque furnishings. Every piece of covered furniture was a ghost to him, and every shadow was hiding something he couldn't see.

"Now, for my invention!" Arwin excitedly held up his device and pointed the radar at the end of the tube for the room. "Stand back as my creation reads every sound and wavelength in the room!" He laughed like a mad scientist and flicked a switch before the sound of crackling screeched from his device. There was a small puff of smoke from between his fingers and a small flame that issued forward and died a few inches from his arm. Zack and Cody jumped back and pulled London with them at the spectacle.

"Hands up if you saw that coming." Zack chuckled and held his hand up. London and Cody held their hands up as well.

"Very funny…" Arwin deflatedly waved the smoke away with his left hand. "I just burnt out the batteries. I just need an extra fuse and another battery." He placed his creation on the same table they had years ago frightened Zack with a phony and exaggerated séance out of revenge for his vicious practical jokes. Zack had changed his tune a bit, but Suite 613 had never really left his mind. He and his brother knew that had seen the ghost of Irene in here since, but they had never told anyone about it. It was only for the sake of Maddie that they dared return to search through it. Back during that time, they had never even looked into the back bedroom. Cody reached up to its handles and with a nervous click opened them up and pushed them wide. The curtains to the room were partially drawn with filtered sunlight coming through dusty white curtains flanked by rich violet tapestries. One window to the front of the building divided a series of closets while a large canopy bed rested against the other wall. It looked like it belonged in a grand castle, especially a haunted one. It's coverings were dark violet with gold ropes, and its blankets slightly disturbed as if someone had just been recently sleeping here. A nightdress was draped silently over a Victorian mahogany chair near the open door of a dingy deserted bathroom. Cody's eyes drifted to the darkened crystal chandelier overhead to the far wall where a high-backed velvet chair was turned toward the window. A sudden chill danced down his spine thinking someone, or something, was sitting there.

"Maddie's not here." Zack responded to his intrepid brother jovially eager to depart this room. "Good theory you had."

"The chair." Cody looked to his brother and then to London. The brown eyes of the heiress were vacant of that sparkle of light that usually danced through them in the light. They were rounded and afraid as she clung to Zack to protect her, or to throw him behind her if she had to make a run for it. Cody could only stride forward and unafraid toward the chair in the limited light with his intelligence and determined tenacity as his only shield. Coming upon it, he noticed the trace of someone's arm over the left side. The sight of another human figure temporarily assuaged his fear, and he forced himself to look upon the face of the person.

It was Maddie! She was garbed in a long and expensive gold and emerald green dress. Resembling an Arthurian princess straight from a book from Camelot, her head was adorned with a silver tiara with diamonds in it. It was resting slightly on her shoulder with her eyes closed. Her blonde hair was brushed with a flourish and slightly parted from her ear to reveal her expensive silver earrings. In Suite 613, she had become an heiress herself with expensive tastes, and in her sleep, she was Sleeping Beauty once more to be awakened by her own Prince Charming. Zack and Cody shook her by her arms trying to rouse her from her eternal slumber in the reduced glow of the dingy covered window.

"Maddie, Maddie… wake up! We found you!"

"Where did she get that dress?" London had to ask. "It is like so European, but then only I could really pull it off."

"Maddie!" Zack lifted her hand as it fell limply from his. He looked to his brother with saddened fear. A tear dripped from his left eye while Cody held Maddie's wrist and tried to read a pulse.

"She's so cold…" Cody replied lifting his head in grief. "So cold…."

"What's going on?" Arwin had dropped a screwdriver he was holding in his teeth and quickly hurried into the room stirring up dust from the floor. "What did you… Maddie! Maddie, we found you!" He noticed London crying, and then Zack and Cody trying to hold back their emotions. Quickly forgetting her selfish desires, London grabbed Arwin for support and started crying.

"She's dead." Zack was close to blubbering. His breath was coming in and out in short breaths through his teeth. Cody was trying to deny the truth before him. He was still trying to shake Maddie awake.

"I never got to tell her I loved her!" Zack bemoaned through his grief.

"But how did she get here, and who dressed her like that?" Arwin asked the question at the top of his mind.

"How can you talk about clothes at a time like this?" London clung to Arwin with her mascara still perfectly in place.

"Did she just actually say…" Cody realized that London was really grieving to have uttered those words.

"I'll get Mr. Moseby up here with paramedics…" Arwin reached for the old-fashionedbrass phone on the writing table in the center of the room. "No, the phone in here doesn't work…" He gently pushed London away and she dropped to sit on the dust filled bed. "I'll run downstairs and get help…" His feet turned taking charge for the bedroom doors on his way to race out of the suite. As soon as his body exited the grimy and abandoned bedroom, he heard a loud crash in the room with him and spun around nearly falling over to see what had happened. The untouched doors had slammed shut behind him and had purposely closed him off to the room. London and the twins were now shut off to him without any way for him to get to them.

At that same moment down on the first floor, the glass front of the podium at the county counter in the lobby had cracked and shattered, allowing stacked candy bars and piled bags of sweets to pour forward. Corrie jumped back to avoid the glass wondering what had happened. After her last customer, she had started reading her Harry Potter book and was leaning forward on the counter. Could her added weight on the podium have put too much stress on the glass?

"Corrie…" Moseby was hastening his way across the lobby around guests and employees. "What did you do?"

"Nothing, Mr. Moseby, I swear!" Corrie franticly shook her head unsure if it was her fault.

"Well," Moseby was adamant to get to the problem. He didn't want new employees trashing the hotel. "Glass doesn't break by itself!"

At that moment, he heard more glass breaking. Turning his head to the front landing of the lobby, he watched as several of the glass doors started cracking untouched and shattering. Guests jumped aside and Esteban leapt through out of the way dropping luggage while all the doors shattered in unison and fell apart separately. It was almost as if an unheard frequency had resonated through the hotel and broke all the glass. The stained glass pattern high above the revolving doors even cracked defiantly. A pattern of lightning fractured up the center of the thick adornment and crumbled in its frame threatening to fall out of its shape above the door.

"Hello," Madeline Fitzpatrick suddenly appeared standing in the blink of an eye to Zack, Cody and London. London shrieked at the sight of her sudden appearance in the window and Cody and Zack whirled around to her in fright.

"I don't often have guests here." She began speaking jovially demented with her hands brought together and her fingers sliding between each other. "I do hope you can stay a while… A very long while…." The brown irises in her eyes slowly paled to light blue and turned to bright green in the dimmed room. Her ruby red lips curled up beaming with a demented and contented smile somewhat devoid of rational human thought.


	5. Chapter 5

PART FIVE

"Man, my dogs are bothering me." Housekeeper Muriel Constanza let herself into one of the empty hotel rooms on the twelfth floor and forced herself tiredly to reach the bed. Sitting down in the privacy of the room, she reached for the remote to the TV and flicked it on to watch her daytime soap operas. With luck, she'd be able to loaf for three hours this time before Moseby hunted her down. Over the Wal-Mart commercials from the TV, she heard the sound of running water from the bathroom.

"That's funny," She told herself. "There shouldn't be anyone here." She forced herself to check out the other intruder beside herself. The bathroom door was already ajar, and the room was filling with steam. Through a break in the misty room, she saw a female figure in the bathtub. Covered in water up to her arms draped out of the tub, the woman had a towel wrapped around her head. Her skin was grave white, but Muriel screamed and ran out of the room when she realized the woman could not possibly be from among the living. She didn't have any eyes.

"Hope you are enjoying your steak." Maitre'd Patrick Kiniski tended to the hotel patrons who ate in the hotel restraunt. Their celebrated chef was Luis Paollo, a culinary master for over twenty years. His dinners added to the refinement of the hotel and the fine atmosphere that existed at staying in the hotel. Patrick tended to the patrons poring wine, recommending Paollo's best dishes and to seating his guests in the dining room or out on the third floor veranda. Turning around one table, he noticed guests at a darkened table he didn't remember sitting anyone at and collected some menus to tend to them as a good host.

"Welcome to the Tipton…." He started advancing on the table. "May I suggest the… uh, uh…" He then began getting the feeling they had both been waiting a very long time. They were both extremely old and cadaverous with the semblance of undead corpses. The woman was dried out - her chest drawn tight against her ribs and her skin parchment thin. The male guest seemed even more ancient with skeletal hands and dried skin atop his nearly bald skull. They were from among the undead and shouldn't be here. Patrick backed from them in fright, and gradually the other guests saw the bodies as well. The female body seemed to respond confused and looked around confused as the dining Tipton guests rose up orderly from the seats and dinners a few at a time and then en masse to depart the room. Quietly disturbed and upset by the sight of the skeletal diners, the other patrons quietly departed the restraunt; some of them holding their napkins to their faces to keep from getting sick. The male figure in his dusty fine attire equally responded in confused silence unable to comprehend the prejudice of the living to eat in the same room with the dearly departed.

From the lobby ahead of the dismayed diners, Esteban had retreated to the custodial closet for a broom, shovel and waste receptacle to clean up the broken glass from the front of the building. Moseby was wondering if debris from the traffic outside on the curb tossed up by cars had shattered the front windows. If that was the case, then, why were they not constantly being shattered? They were also supposed to be unbreakable security glass. Leaving Moseby to figure out the damage, Esteban rolled out a receptacle to dump the glass in and grabbed the broom and shovel that would help him do it. Before returning to the lobby, his eyes glanced up to the long shadows passing against the windows in the doors to the back stairway. It looked as if there were a lot of people traveling up the usually empty stairway, but there wasn't that many people working the hotel. The hotel employees mostly and nearly entirely used those stairs. Curiously peeking into the long stairway, Esteban's eyes widened in stunned apprehension at what he saw. He wanted to run in fear, but he couldn't look away. It was too incredible a sight!

There were countless spirits of vague and immaterial spirits traveling up and down those stairs. Through them, he could see the dark outline of the balustrades and handrails. At the edges of the over-lapping figures, he could tell what they were wearing and the periods they came from. Eternally weary Revolutionary War soldiers, some trussed up in bandages, others supported by canes or carrying spectral rifles and weapons, walked among long dead Civil War soldiers, the ghosts of poorly dressed civilians, well-dressed figures of prominence and even a spectral dog. The voices of children echoed from the afterlife while the phantoms of long-dead children raced their way up to the top floors. One Hessian soldier coming down the stairs with the end of his rifle dragging behind him looked as if he had just left a long forgotten war. Lifting a hand of pallor up to his empty eyes, he saluted Esteban respectfully and continued on his way around a black servant girl of middle age in a transparent gingham dress and then a spectral horseman carrying his head by its long hair. Esteban wondered if he should be afraid, but continued to watch in awe even as one ghost lead his horse clanking and tromping up the Tipton stairs for the afterlife.

"Looks like Day of the Dead came early this year." He noticed the ghost of a shapely brunette Hispanic princess in slight undress beaming her unearthly grin to him upon passing him.

"Maddie?" Up in the penthouse, Zack couldn't understand why he was suddenly afraid of Maddie. "You know us, right? Zack and Cody?"

"And me, uh, uh, uh…." London was forgetting her own name.

"London!" The twins reminded her.

"The names don't sound familiar…" Maddie searched her memories while her eyes fanatically turned left and right as she mentally perused her life. "But I am being such a bad hostess. Drink?" She held her hand up as a bottle of wine lifted up from the liquor cabinet in the room and glided through the air to her hand. Maddie just effortlessly took it from the air as if she had willed it, and giggled under breath as the cork popped itself from the bottle. She was not just herself - she was obviously mentally controlling ghostly energies beyond understanding. London's mouth dropped open in fear of her best friend, and Zack and Cody reacted in disbelief at their new unearthly, and possibly dangerous, babysitter.

"I've seen movies like this." Zack cried out bluntly. "She's possessed, and I'm getting out of here before she eats us!"

"Right with you!" London shared the same sentiment. The two of them bolted quickly for the closed bedroom doors and began pulling, pounding and fighting to get through them. Cody reacted more analytically. His feet wanted to run, and his head was scared as much as his brother, but his heart was reminding him that this was Maddie. A close friend who may have been a source of infatuation for his brother, but she deserved to be helped and reminded of who she really was.

"Why won't these doors open!" London was pounding and kicking at the inside of the bedroom doors.

"Maddie…" Cody responded slowly as he watched her pour two dusty glasses with red wine. "I found you. Please, just come with me downstairs to Moseby. He'll help you."

"Why would I want to go downstairs?" The former candy counter girl reacted bewildered at his request. "We have everything we want here."

"Maddie…" London turned round and started fishing through her purse. "That's a really neat trick you did with the doors!" She grinned vacuously. "I'll give you five hundred dollars to open them again and let us escape!"

"Why do you want to leave?" Maddie looked her and refused to recognize the cash in London's hand. "This hotel is everything to me. It's mine and I can give you anything you want."

"Okay, first of all," Zack became comedically rational. "You're really creeping us out. Two, I think you've got at least someone else, maybe one, maybe five others, in that head of yours, and three…" He took a deep breath before admitting the last fact. "It's not your hotel."

"Zack, no, don't go there!" Cody was waving his hands at his brother.

"Not my hotel?" Maddie asked out loud. Cody slapped his right hand to his forehead in disbelief.

"Never tick off the possessed." Cody told himself under breath.

"Right, it's my hotel." London confirmed it. "My daddy owns it, and if you keep me here, I'm pretty sure it's considered kidnapping, and my daddy never gives into kidnappers." She looked at Cody waving his hands at her trying to get her stop talking. "What's wrong with you? Are you landing a plane or something?"

"Not my hotel?" Maddie repeated herself refusing to accept that fact. "It is my hotel…" She started advancing on London scowling with her long train of skirt trailing from her dress. "I own it. I control it. I rule it!"

"Not as long as I'm around…" London spoke her mind with a bit of attitude.

"Then let's get rid of you!" Maddie's eyes flared bright green again as her right arm lashed out at London. The petite heiress stepped back in time from nearly get her head knocked off her body and gasped holding her chest. The blonde candy counter girl she considered her friend obviously didn't exist anymore. Maddie would never have tried to strike her. Zack and Cody jumped up to hold Maddie back from hitting London again. For a brief second, she seemed to be restrained by the two young boys, but with a scream roaring from her lungs, she tossed them off of herself. Zack flew backward and crashed through the French doors of one of the closets and Cody was tossed backward into the canopy bed, bounced off of it with a cloud of dust and rebounded into a crash to the floor. With that kind of physical strength in her former best friend, what sort of hope did a petite heiress have?

"Oh no, you didn't!" London shook her finger at Maddie, dropped her purse and stood her ground. A stern look, a warning gaze, and she took a pose from her Karate expertise.

"I'll get you kids out in a minute!" Arwin was still in the outer suite trying to free the kids from the room. With a hammer from his belt wedged in the doors, he tried wedging them apart, but they weren't reacting the way they should have been. The wood should have been cracking, the doors should have been widening and the doorway should be opening. Kicking and fighting to open the bedroom doors, he fought to get the bedroom open and wondered why it wasn't. Pushing his weight into the hammer, he felt someone pulling him back from the door. His head turned to see who was behind him and he recognized the short and skinny visage of the ghost of the man who had trained him to work at the Tipton pulling him from the doors.

"Mr. Hennessey?" Arwin considered the man his mentor. Jack Hennessey had died two years ago while retired in Florida. Reaching out in respect to the man's apparition fading away, Arwin realized he had been moved to save his life. Behind him, the bedroom doors crashed open with someone flying through them. Arwin's jaw dropped as London hit the floor and tumbled over to her side. Had she been shot out of a cannon? He turned round again and recognized Maddie coming at him as well.

"Out of my way, cretin!" Maddie swatted him effortlessly out of her way. Her seemingly mild gesture felt like a ton of bricks. Bouncing off the wall near Irene's portrait, his back hitting the wall jarred it loose and it dropped to rest on its bottom edge. A few paces from him, London coughed, tried to compose herself and looked up to someone she thought was her best friend. There was no trace of the Maddie she knew anymore. There was no sign of her spirit, her vivacious smile or her vibrant spark of life. Garbed in that expensive gown, she was vicious, angry and unstoppable.

"Your father…" Maddie's voice was vibrating with another voice coming from her lips. "Purchased my hotel away from me."

"Because my ancestor built it!" London crawled backward through the living quarters for the doorway to the hall. "It's always been the Tipton Hotel!" She inched backward away from Maddie and turned round to lift herself up, but that was when Maddie reached down, grabbed London by the collar and belt and lifted her off her feet. London's breath was coming stronger and stronger. Her panicked eyes mirrored her fear mounting in her body being lifted up off the floor and smashed to the wall. She felt Maddie's fingers on her throat. Her feet kicked at the wall trying to touch the floor.

"Today, the spoiled rotten heiress crosses over!" Another voice came from Maddie's body.

"Maddie…" Zack had stumbled to his feet from the bottom of the closet and ambled forward painfully to brace on the old séance table about to keel over in pain. His eyes full of tears, his breath racing and his face contorted in fear, he watched as Maddie's anger reached a zenith and London fought to get a breath past the fingers tightening on her porcelain neck. If Maddie actually killed London for the things she had done to her in the past, the police would certainly find someway to bring her to justice. He couldn't allow that to happen. London started pleading and fighting for a breath of air.

"Maddie, please…" Zack reached out to her. "Don't do it!" He paused in pain trying to think. "I love you…" His eyes welled with tears of emotion.

"Zack?" His voice resonated with a spark of memory in the blonde one's head. Maddie slightly turned her head and started to recall who she once was.

"You're reaching her!" Cody limped toward the bedroom doorframe holding his left arm close to his chest. "Continue talking to her!"

"Maddie!" Arwin was lifting himself up as well and yelled over the table while at his knees on the floor. "I know you're in there. You don't want to this!"

"Yes, I do!" Maddie slipped backward into her repressed personality and threatened to snap London's neck. "She's made my life miserable! She's treated me worse than a dog. She's lorded over me all she has! She's put me through hell and back! It's my hotel now! I'm finally riding myself of her." Her voice reverted back to herself briefly. "Maddie has nothing. Maddie has no money. Maddie has no one that loves her and takes care of her."

"London did." Cody reminded her. "She treated you not as her friend, but…." He cleared his breath. "As her sister."

"Maddie…" London choked on her voice and searched for a trace of the girlfriend she knew in her killer. "I'm so sorry. Please, please…"

"Maddie," Arwin came up alongside the girls to look into Maddie's eyes. "I heard about the way your family treats you, but you've got another family here that does love you. Hasn't Carie treated you like her daughter, and the boys like their sister. We're your family. Are you going to destroy that?"

"Maddie," Cody continued talking. "We're your family. Haven't we been just like brothers to you, and Moseby almost like a dad."

"Yeah," Zack spoke up as well. "And Arwin's like your crazy uncle."

"Yeah," Arwin spoke up. "I'm like your crazy… hey! Why can't I be her dashing older brother?"

"What am I doing?" Tears started streaming down Maddie's face. Dropping London from her hands, she felt her mind was playing games on her. Who was she really? She didn't want to return to just the candy counter, but she couldn't stay in this room trying to be something she wanted. Her eyes looked down upon her hands at what she had almost done, then to London gasping and rubbing her neck. London's heart pumped a bit differently looking back to Maddie.

"I'm so sorry!" Maddie's voice wavered to her.

"I forgive you." London started tearing up too. Reaching out instinctively with her heart, she pulled Maddie close and held her close. With that, the emotions poured out from Maddie's lungs and her eyes filled up with emotion. Her heart was racing and her head was pounding. Cody and Zack joined them in the poignant embrace to lend their support to the expression of love and honor. Feeling briefly let out, Arwin smirked a bit and joined them too as the room began brightening from the sunlight filling the room. Across the hotel, wafting ethereal energies dissipated into nothing once more.


	6. Chapter 6

PART SIX

JOURNAL ENTRY OF CODY FRANKLIN MARTIN – July 20, 2006

"Eight days and counting until Hannah Montana lands at the Tipton for her Boston Concert. Mom was able to finagle us cheap tickets through dad's music contacts here in Boston as well as a ticket for herself. I just hope she doesn't embarrass me. Zack is also rehearsing his stupid pick-up lines (et al, "Do your feet hurt because you've been running through my dreams all week." "Did it hurt when you fell out of heaven because you're an angel to me.") I know he's going to embarrass me.

"Maddie's supposed to return to work sometime next week since "the incident." She's been seeing a therapist for her depression and starting to feel better about herself. From what I can understand from the psychology about human possession from Mr. Collins' website, I'm assuming her low self-esteem might have made her vulnerable to whatever is in Suite 613. I don't think she was genuinely "possessed," but she may have exiled herself mentally and emotionally to a mental Jungian "fantasy-world," perhaps some form of self-induced amnesia, where she felt important and more like London (as if we need a second, more dangerous version of London wandering around the hotel unchecked). Not sure if I agree with this sort of pseudo-psychological assessment, but it does sound a lot better than possession, but then again, she did toss Zack and I around like rag dolls…"

Glaziers were refitting new glass to the front of the hotel even as guests checked in. William Collins' analysis of the hotel had appeared in the newspaper word for word from his society's newsletter and the bookings had gone up as predicted. Reportedly haunted hotels did do better business because both believers and non-believers wanted to either experience or either expose the ghosts. Amidst the business of tourists, businessmen and diplomats checking in and out, Maddie Fitzgerald wandered barely noticed through and around guests and Tipton tenants straining past men replaced the glass in the doors. Garbed in her civilian clothes, she appeared in her blue jeans, a white blouse and brown burlap jacket as if she had stepped out of a Western play and perused the lobby like a visitor for once. A refrained grin tried to break from the corners of her lips, and her eyes looked up over her surroundings back over to the candy county. Corrie dabbed her fingers to her tongue to turn the pages of her book, but something finally forced her to look up and she beamed toward Maddie once more.

"Maddie!" She placed her book open upside down to the counter. "How are you feeling?"

"A little better…" Maddie confessed with a deep breath. "I guess I'm finally feeling good about myself." She forced a small laugh. "How do you like my candy counter?"

"This is the most boring job I have ever had." Corrie leaned forward. "I'm beginning to understand why you…"

"Lost it?" Maddie filled in her words then shook her head. "It was too much of a lot of other things, but Zack and Cody helped to remind me that I have a lot of good things here too. I'm not just the candy counter girl; the Tipton is part of my family." She paused to allow Corrie to understand. "You know, I can watch the counter for you if you want to go get lunch."

"You will?" Corrie came out and gave Maddie a friendly hug. "Are you sure you want to…" Maddie just passed off the insinuation and allowed Corrie to go off to the back of the lobby for the employee hallway beyond the vestibule. A slight gasp for assurance, Maddie was at her place again and feeling nostalgic as if a hundred years had gone by since she was last behind the counter. She placed a blank receipt as a bookmark in Corrie's book and secured it down by her purse. She didn't have any memories of being in Suite 613. It all felt like a dream she had until Cody, Zack and London snapped her out of it. The sensations and images were in her head, but they were more visual impressions belonging to a dream she almost wanted to go back to and relive; something like those dreams she had where she was named Sharpay and sang and danced in a school in California. Somewhere in the selfish recess of her mind, she had liked being able to control everything around her – to be able to both manipulate the world around her and to intimidate others to her whims. It was what all dreams were supposed to be, but they belonged in her inner mind, and now here in the real world where someone could actually get hurt. Looking to the bars of candy within her restored podium, she half-seriously waved her right hand over them and jolted when they sat upon their edges toward her gesture.

Did anyone see that! She looked around the room scared and taken aback. She had imagined it. She had better had imagined it! A nervous chuckle under her breath, she pulled a long lock of her hair past her ear and peered up to Mr. Moseby emerging from his office. Carie had appeared from the hall to the lounge and had started toward him, but instead they approached en masse. Had they seen? Had they seen what she had done?

"Maddie…" Moseby was reaching up comfortingly and took her close more as a parent than an employer. Carie also took her turn to comfort her as a substitute daughter. "Maddie…" Moseby repeated. "I just want you to know I am sorry. I mean, I may be your employer, but I care about you too. I just want you to know that if you ever have a problem, my door is open."

"Mine too, honey," Carie brushed and adjusted Maddie's long hair aside with her fingers. "If you ever need to talk to anyone, I'll be there for you."

"Thank you, Mrs. Martin…." Maddie echoed barely above a whisper.

"We mean it, Maddie." Moseby assured her. "I will do anything within my power to… Mr. Collins!" His attention was attentively diverted to the solitary ghost-hunter and he whirled Maddie around for Carie to catch.

"Why is it that the ghosts only come out AFTER I've left?" William Collins was trussed up explorer style in boots, khaki pants, a black shirt and brown leather jacket with a worn fedora to his head. "I'm just about to head to an examination of the Stoddard House in Pickford, Illinois when I got your e-mail about, what, ghostly apparitions in the restraunt?"

"The back stairway is thick of them too." Esteban mumbled as he wandered by.

"I've got something else you're just going to love…" Moseby grinned with a secret. "Surveillance tapes of all sorts of weird goings on…" He led the ghost hunter toward his office behind the admissions desk.

"Hey, Mister Collins…" Zack, Cody and London had come down the elevator. London stopped briefly by Maddie and they once again hugged each other in deep friendship. London was promising to try and be nicer to her and less self-involved. Cody had his left arm in a sling while his brother stopped before the experienced ghost hunter and looked up with a knowing grin.

"Have I got a story for you!" Zack beamed firing his fingers to the Maine native like two small guns.

"But Mr. Moseby has a better one." Carie challenged him.

"I'd bet money that he doesn't." Cody sounded as if he had a secret. Neither he nor his brother had told anyone just exactly how they found Maddie. With everything that happened that day, the simplest version of their story claimed that Maddie had been locked in Suite 613 trying to get out and that was it. She had been taken to the hospital by stretcher, and had experienced a nervous breakdown. In the back of his mind, Moseby suspected a lot more, but then he decided he didn't really want to know.

"Oh, by the way…" Moseby looked to Collins and reached deep within his front desk. "I did finally get a telegram from Irene's heirs in France." He produced the paper. "It seems they were unaware of her ownership of Suite 613, and not having any interest in it, they drafted a deed for it which they sold to a wealthy family in New England near…"

"Collinsport, Maine?" Collins was beaming ear to ear.

"You?" Zack spoke up and London dropped her jaw. Carie lightly giggled at the realization while Maddie shared looks with London and Cody. Collins could just smugly beam himself while looking among their surprised faces.

"I wanted it to be a surprise." He finally admitted. "I tracked them down during my examination of Calvados Castle last month." He turned back to Moseby. "Of course, I want it back on the housekeeping schedule, and fixed up again by this winter and ready for my parents' anniversary next February 13."

"Excellent," Moseby moved behind the counter for his electronic date-book. "Under what names should I put the reservation under?"

"Barnabas and Angelique Collins…" William revealed his parent's names.

Carie, Cody, Zack, Maddie and London all similarly started tilting their heads in unison imagining a tune from a Gothic soap opera from the late Sixties. It was almost like the same Robert Cobert theme used against the image of water striking against rocks for the opening montage of a TV series about a wealthy family living on an estate with a haunted history.

At that moment, another sound, resembling that of a single plaintive voice wafted through the sixth floor toward the elevators. It was searching and wandering. It was distant, as though from another world. Not one of the already ensconced guests nor the bustling employees could hear it, but it continued searching.

"Maddie…. Maddie…." It seemed to implore. "Come back to the party, Maddie…."

The elevator parted to the floor and Corrie nearly stepped forward. Realizing where she was, she stepped back confusingly into the elevator.

"Where am I going?" She asked herself. "This isn't the employee break room." She just shrugged it off, stepped back and hit the button for the second floor once more.

END


End file.
